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NEW YORK -- Sears Holdings (SHLD) is closing its downtown Chicago flagship outlet in April, the latest move by the retailer to cut the number of its stores as it relies more on online retailing.

The store has lost "millions of dollars" since opening in 2001, a Sears spokesman said Tuesday. The closing will leave Sears' namesake chain without a store in the downtown core of its hometown. Sears is based in suburban Hoffman Estates, Ill. It has three other stores in Chicago.

In a blog post Tuesday, hedge fund manager Edward Lampert, who is Sears' CEO and top shareholder, said store closings are necessary because shoppers' habits are changing as they buy more online.

"The consensus about decreased store traffic also highlights another decision that has steered our work:

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we very often need less space to serve our members better and we may need fewer locations as well," Lampert said.

"As difficult as these changes are, we believe the alternative of failing to plan for or even see where the retail industry is heading would be far, far worse."

Sears reported a 9.2 percent decline in comparable sales for the holiday season at its namesake chain, the latest poor showing by the retailer. The company also operates the Kmart discount chain.

Sears Holdings has closed about 300 U.S. stores since 2010. The company has about 2,000 Sears and Kmart locations in the United States.

Other retailers are also closing stores. J.C. Penney (JCP) announced last week that it was closing 33 of its 1,100 stores. Macy's (M) is closing five stores, although it plans to open eight new locations.

Target (TGT) was the second most-visited discount retailer in the U.S. during March, behind only Walmart. One reason was the number of Target stores. The company has been attempting to take on Walmart by adding grocery sections to more stores, and by offering groceries at competitive prices. This has helped Target maintain strong financial performance despite the weak economy and its additional spending on its launch in Canada. Most Americans surveyed by the American Customer Satisfaction Index rated Target well: It finished in a three-way tie for second place in the department and discount store category, behind Nordstrom.

As recently as 2011, Taco Bell (YUM) was struggling to keep competitor Chipotle (CMG) from taking its customers, with flat or negative same-store sales growth in each quarter that year. This changed in early 2012, when Taco Bell released the Doritos Locos taco, a hard taco with the flavor of Doritos nacho chips. That item help the company increase comparable sales in every quarter of 2012, as the company sold more than 1 million of them a day. In March, Taco Bell CEO Greg Creed told The Daily Beast the company had hired 15,000 workers just to meet demand for the Doritos Locos taco in 2012. Last year, the company's sales increased by $1 billion to $11.8 billion, and net income rose by roughly $300 million to $1.6 billion.

CVS (CVS) is the top provider of prescriptions in the country, filling or managing more than 1 billion prescriptions a year. It has operates in 45 states, and 75% of the people in the markets it serves live within three miles one of the company's 7,400 retail stores. Last year, CVS estimated it gained millions of new customers following a dispute between Walgreens (WAG) and Express Scripts (ESRX), the prescription management service. Even after the dispute was resolved, CVS was able to retain many customers who used to fill prescriptions at Walgreens. In the first quarter of 2013, the company's revenue grew 5%, as same-store sales grew 4%.

Despite CVS's gains, Walgreens is still the most visited drugstore in the country. According to RetailSails, the company has the most stores, at 7,890, and the largest average store, at 14,400 square feet, among all drugstore chains. The company's tenure in first place may not last, however, thanks to that now-resolved dispute with Express Scripts. The company spent nearly nine months without using Express Scripts, the largest prescription management service in the country, losing an estimated 60 million prescriptions to rivals. CVS estimates that it will retain roughly half of the Walgreen's customers it gained as a result of the squabble.

In 2011, Wendy's (WEN) overall sales surpassed Burger King's, making it the second-largest burger chain in the U.S. But Wendy's growth has actually been quite modest as of late, with same-store sales in North America growing just 1.6% from 2011 to 2012. (In fact, Wendy's first-quarter profit just tumbled 83%.) Wendy's is in the process of remodeling many of its restaurants with more comfortable seating arrangements and flat-screen televisions. However, not all of its stores are getting upgraded. The company announced in March it was going to shutter as many as 130 underperforming stores. Last year, the company also made significant changes in its marketing strategy and menu in order to attract customers who have been lured in by chains such as Panera, which promotes healthier food at slightly higher prices.

There is a reason Starbucks (SBUX) is No. 1 in the coffee category: Sales in the U.S. grew by nearly 346% between 2001 and 2012, and the number of stores grew by 195%. The company has struggled in the U.S. in the past several years, but its stock has continued to rise as global sales have helped to pick up the slack. Worldwide, Starbucks revenue grew by 7% in 2012 compared to 2011. This included a 15% growth in the Asia/Pacific region. In its early years, the company did not place much emphasis on its food items. However, that has changed in recent years, especially following the purchase of Bay Area pastry chain La Boulangerie. However, some industry analysts remain skeptical of Starbucks' ability to compete for customers' breakfast purchases.

The last decade or so has been especially tumultuous for Burger King: It was taken private in two separate instances, in 2002 and in 2010, and became a public company again last June. The company hasn't performed well in years, with an average growth rate of -0.1% between 2001 and 2013, which allowed Wendy's to take its No. 2 burger chain title. A restructuring that began after the second buyout in 2010, in which many stores were sold to franchisees, has cut deeply into the company's sales. But not all news for Burger King is bad news: Nearly one quarter of Americans visited a Burger King in March.

Between 2001 and 2012, Subway's sales in the U.S. grew nearly 169%, while the number of stores grew nearly 93%. Subway is by far the largest fast food chain in the U.S., with almost 26,000 restaurants. The company has been able to fuel its large growth through both international expansion and a domestic focus on healthy eating, most notably using ads featuring Jared Fogle -- a man who lost an impressive amount of weight while regularly eating the company's sandwiches. In 2013, for the ninth year in a row, Subway received the highest score in the country in a Harris Poll EquiTrend study in the "quick service restaurants" category and was named brand of the year by that group.

Walmart (WMT) is by far the largest retailer in the U.S. and in many parts of the world. It was recently ranked No. 1 in the Fortune 500 after it reported more than $469 billion in worldwide revenue in 2012. While international markets are critical to growth, the U.S. market provides the majority of its revenue: U.S. sales comprise 62% of the company's sales. In the last five years, Walmart has added 450 U.S. stores, a 13% increase overall. However, according to Bloomberg, the company's U.S. workforce has dropped 1.4% in that time frame, leading customers to complain about a lack of inventory and longer check-out lines -- and to defect to rivals such as Target and Costco. In February, the American Customer Service Index ranked Walmart the lowest of all discount retailers, the sixth year in a row the chain has held or tied for the last place spot.

Almost half of all Americans visited a McDonald's (MCD) in March, but, U.S. sales of $8.8 billion weren't even the company's largest revenue segment last year. Rather it was the company's sales in Europe of $10.8 billion. According to Technomic, McDonald's same-store sales grew at an annualized rate of nearly 5% from 2001 through 2012. However, this has slowed recently: The company's systemwide sales in the United States rose by just 0.3% from the year before in the final quarter of 2012. The company is already so large that its bottom line is deeply linked to global economic conditions, leaving it unable to raise prices for now. In order to boost sales, McDonald's CEO Bob Thompson told CNBC the company may try allowing U.S. stores to serve breakfast all day.

With the economy still on the rebound price is what people look at first. They will go to whoever sells what they are looking for the cheapest. This whole thing is part of the master plan to lower the American standard of living down to match the rest of the world.

It's going to be gut-wretching seeing two iconic, at one-time beloved, "old American" brick and mortar retail institutions close down shop at the same time, after almost 230 years of combined service to the public. In JCP's case, one man will have been responsible for their demise. As far as "Sears Holdings" (any time you hear the term "holdings", be wary!), many years of small mis-steps have simply added-up to total catastrophic failure. Ironically, the everyday low-price debacle was tried by Sears about 20 years ago, and JCP didn't learn from that failed "mid-range" retail experiment. Thank God that Macy's has adjusted very well to the new American retail market with beautiful, new, clean, well-stocked stores, and a robust, competitivet online program. At least the institution of Macy's should be around for many years to come.

Sear's has been an institution, but has failed to see market trends. On line shopping not only affords consumers the opportunity to purchase from home and avoiding the crowded malls, but is an upward trend. Retailers need to react. Sear's will be gone by the end of 2014.

I always bought at Sears, they stood behind their products and hired veterns but now, last year all of their Craftsman tools are being made in China. They laid off 1,000s of workers at those tool plants. Now they are trying to be another Walmart to increase their sales of Chineese products. Shame on them and the American buyers, they said they had to to compete with the other discount stores. Does anyone know where there are good American made tools being retailed?

I stopped buying at Sears when they charged me for a stand up deep freezer I never received. Took a year to finally get it off my credit report. It was a total nightmare, nobody, nobody would srand up and say, oppps we made a mistake. I think they finally found out their delivery warehouse manager was stealing from them.

Sears had Thomas Wilson for a CEO....his leadership devastated Sears. He is now CEO of Allstate. Recently he took away a retiree lifelong benefit from 1000's of Allstate retirees . I am one. We had 100,000 in life insurance as a retirment benefit, after working for Allstate for 35 years Mr. Wilson, who earned 17 million as CEO last year took away our benefit to raise his stock price up $1.73 cents. Imagine a fluctuating stock price? Our families no longer getting the $100,000 that other families have already collected. I don't know how this guy can look in the mirror.

We stopped buying at Sears a long time ago. Their prices are way too high, especially when you can get the same brands for less at other stores. We used to go into K-Mart for some cheap items, but even before Sears and K-Mart basically became one, they started carrying some overpriced junk (Martha Stewart items come to mind first for me).